Kickstarter employees have voted in favour of forming a union, Twitter talks about how they prevent their email inbox from catching on fire, and Jeff Bezos says he’s pledging $10 billion to fight climate change, but Reddit isn’t convinced.
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It marks the first time a major tech company has moved toward organized labour. Kickstarter will be affiliated with the Office and Professional Employees International Union, and are set to start discussions over equal pay and inclusive hiring. The move, according to a Polygon article, comes after months of conflict at the small New York-based tech company. Many people on LinkedIn are calling the move a milestone for the tech industry, where employee activism has recently been on the rise over topics including harassment, corporate culture and climate change.
Email doesn’t have to be a source of stress, but who are we kidding, it always will be. Or will it? A Twitter thread from Forge, a new Medium publication about personal development, tried to introduce people to a few easy ways to manage emails without installing new software and hardware. Among the suggestions, the thread encourages people to keep it simple – no flashy bells and whistles. Also, don’t feel compelled to keep your unread messages at 0 – that’s overkill. And lastly, try to send better emails yourself. If your message is clear and concise, it could avoid confusion and subsequent follow-up emails that waste everyone’s time.
And lastly, a story by the Independant is gaining lotsa traction on Reddit. The world’s richest man says he’s pledging $10 billion to fight climate change, but is he really trying to create positive change? Or, as the article puts it, is he cosplaying as a firefighter instead. The story, and the Reddit thread it was posted on, highlights a lot of the inconsistencies that come with the billionaire’s philanthropy. One example that Redditors have mentioned more than once is the money Bezos donated last year to help Seattle’s homeless while Amazon lobbied the city to drop a tax which would help the homeless population. The post has more than 22,000 upvotes and nearly 1,500 comments.
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